Tag: Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums

Six years ago, on Jan. 1, 2009, Oscar Grant III, 22, was shot and later died of bullet wounds received when Johannes Mehserle, then a BART police officer, fired his gun at point blank range into Grant’s back – after Grant and his friends had been taunted with racial epithets and assaulted by Mehserle and other BART officers on the scene, while Mehserle’s partner, Tony Pirone, held Grant down with both hands and a knee on his head and neck.

Hours after San Francisco Bay Area radio show host JR Valrey screened his documentary film, “Operation Small Axe,” about police brutality at a university in Philadelphia, daily newspapers in that city carried articles about two separate lawsuits filed against Philly police alleging brutality. “Police brutality is definitely not ‘isolated incidents,’ as officials always say after each new killing or beating by police,” said Valrey, host of the Block Report, a program aired on KPFA-FM, the Pacifica station in the Bay Area.

District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly, champion of the have-nots in San Francisco for a decade, has passed the torch and endorsed James Keys, his longtime legislative assistant and campaign coordinator, to be his successor. “James was by my side through my toughest battles,” Daly said.

After a POCC People’s Investigation into the Oakland 2010 Rebellion’s shutting down of Foot Locker, what baffled me was that many people could not politically put together that liberating merchandise was putting political pressure on downtown to pressure government to prosecute the criminals that killed Oscar Grant on New Year’s morning of 2009.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums had a chance to shine last Thursday, after the verdict was announced in the murder trial of transit cop Johannes Mehserle for the Jan. 1, 2009, killing of 22-year-old unarmed Black man Oscar Grant. But instead of standing with the people, Dellums stood with his police chief, and together they proceeded to criminalize the entire community.

Today at the Alameda County Courthouse, made famous by the “Free Huey!” rallies held on the steps by the Black Panther Party, all charges were dismissed against POCC Minister of Information JR Valrey! Join POCC Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. and Pam and Ramona Africa for a Power to the People Victory Celebration tonight, Monday, Feb. 22, 6:30 p.m., Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pine St., West Oakland – YOU are invited!

Build the new civil rights movement to stop police brutality. Rally Monday, May 18, 8 a.m., at the Rene C. Davidson Courthouse, 12th Street and Oak, near the Oakland City Center and the 12th Street BART Station.

The United States is in the midst of the most radical privatization agenda in its history. We see this in schools, health care, prisons and certainly with the U.S. military/ national security/ intelligence apparatus.

Many TV channels broadcast live the entire funeral for four Oakland police officers killed March 21, news anchors calling them "heroes" and "angels." Police funerals are intended to legitimize past and future police violence and tell the public to shut up. The spineless left complies - no mention of Oscar Grant ... or Lovelle Mixon.

The Oakland Police Department suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the foot when it further racialized the March 21 shootings by rescinding Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums' invitation to speak at the public funeral of the four officers who were gunned down.